Gordon Brown – 2004 Speech at Launch of the Enterprise Insight Campaign

The speech made by Gordon Brown, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 28 June 2004.

I am delighted to be here today with Britain’s top entrepreneurs, businesses and education organisations to launch a new campaign aimed at inspiring young people to believe in their own entrepreneurial potential and “Make Their Mark”.

As you know, the campaign will culminate in November with the first ever British ‘National Enterprise Week’ designed to encourage young people to think entrepreneurially, to get them excited about the possibilities of starting up a business, and to mark a step change in the creation of a more dynamic enterprise culture in our country.

And I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you here who are working tirelessly to make Enterprise Week a success: Kevin Steele and George Cox from Enterprise Insight; and all the individual members of the Enterprise Insight campaign who are bringing together so many events into just one week this autumn.

During Enterprise Week Britain will showcase our entrepreneurial talent and inspire young people in every region of the country:

• over 2,000 young people from all over the world will compete in a 24 hour global enterprise challenge;
• Shell Livewire will showcase their 300 best young business start-ups;
• Britain’s 100 fastest growing inner city companies will be rewarded for their success;
• young people will attend mentoring classes, networking events and workshops with established entrepreneurs;
• there will be competitions for the most innovative business ideas; and
• there will be enterprise roadshows for school pupils all over Britain.

And as we launch this Enterprise Week campaign today, I can also tell you that there will be three other competitions to recognise and reward our brightest and best entrepreneurs – and the cities and towns that are doing most to encourage the entrepreneurs of the future.

The ‘Enterprising Britain’ competition will identify British cities or towns that have championed a culture of enterprise throughout the regions of the UK. Nominations from across the country will be unveiled during Enterprise Week, and Britain’s first national capital of enterprise will be chosen next spring.

I congratulate the Daily Mail and Enterprise Insight for setting up, in parallel, ‘Enterprising Britons’ – a competition to find the nation’s most outstanding enterprising individuals – with the winners crowned during Enterprise Week this autumn.

And when in a fortnight’s time the Queen and other members of the Royal family visit the most outstanding examples of enterprise in each region, we will be announcing a new Queen’s award for enterprise.

As we celebrate entrepreneurship I have set a goal for the Pre-Budget Report, which will be presented to the House of Commons at the same time as National Enterprise Week, to do more to remove all the old barriers holding the enterprising back.

For too long, in too many areas, for too much of our recent past, enterprise has been seen as something for someone else, for a small elite. People thought the opportunity to start a business, to become self-employed, to make their ideas happen, was, somehow, not for them.

So we must rebuild a truly enterprising culture in Britain and we must open up enterprise to all.  Encouragement for business start ups must be available in the highest unemployment area as well as the most prosperous areas, to the redundant worker as well as to the tycoon’s son.

I want us to create a Britain of ambition where what matters is not where you come from but what you aspire to – and where business creation is encouraged.

That is why in the last seven years we have put in place reforms to help business start up and grow.  We have cut capital gains tax from 40p to 10p. We have introduced the most open competition regime this country has seen. To cut the penalties of failure we have radically reformed the insolvency laws. We have cut small companies corporation tax from 23p to 19p, with a new zero rate for the smallest companies first £10,000 pounds of profit. And perhaps most importantly of all, we have created economic stability in which businesses can plan ahead with confidence.

As a result more people than ever want to start businesses. There are 100,000 more businesses than in 1997, 3000 new businesses are starting up each week, and last year saw the fastest rate of increase in self-employment for two decades.

55 per cent of people now believe they have the skills to start up a business, compared to 40 per cent in 2001.  Indeed 39 per cent believe there are good start up opportunities for them, compared to 18 per cent, only a few years ago.

It takes 24 days to set up a business in the rest of Europe but only 7 days in Britain – and I want that time to be even less.

So we have made progress but there is still much more to do.

It is because we want as strong and deep an enterprise culture as the United States, that Britain must now prepare for the next round of enterprise reforms: removing the barriers to enterprise; more devolution of business support to the regions; and enterprise brought into schools and universities –  as well as greater encouragement for entrepreneurs.

At every stage – whether for companies starting up, investing, hiring, training, seeking equity, exporting – our aim is to be on businesses’ side.  And, learning from flexibilities in the United States, we are working to remove all the old barriers holding the enterprising back:

• we are simplifying VAT, audit and regulatory regimes;
• instead of having to account for every transaction there is now a simple flat rate VAT calculation for small businesses which lifts the burden of VAT red tape off the shoulders of hundreds of thousand of companies;
• we have exempted more small businesses from the requirement to submit an independent audit;
• we have set up a review to minimise and reduce duplication in the inspection system and enforcement regimes;
• this year we will launch new funds for enterprise capital, to bridge the funding gap many new businesses face;
• and because run down inner city areas or derelict industrial estates should not be seen as no go areas for new business but as areas of business opportunity – offering new choices, new recruits, and new markets – we have put in place 2000 new Enterprise Areas with stamp duty exemptions, community investment tax relief, fast track planning, and enhanced capital allowances for the renovation of business premises.  And I want to look at how we can go even further to encourage enterprise in disadvantaged communities in particular.

And I believe that the announcements we make in the forthcoming Spending Review will reflect these priorities.

Indeed I have studied the submissions of the Spending Review and what is remarkable is the consensus from unions to management; from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to the regions of England south and north that enterprise, along with science, innovation and skills, must be an investment priority for government.

And in each case we should commit ourselves to the long term – resisting the old stop-go in spending that has done so much damage in the past.

To make business support services more responsive to local people and local businesses, we will confirm in the Spending Review that the Business Links service – which helped half a million businesses last year – will be devolved out of Whitehall to the regions and we will do more to give RDAs the freedom and flexibility to be the driving force behind enterprise and business growth in every region of the country.

Creating an enterprise culture starts not in the boardroom but in the classroom. Yet when I was at school no business ever came near the doors of our classroom.

I can tell you today that there are funds set aside in the forthcoming Spending Review so that each school will be able to offer every pupil not just work experience but 5 days of enterprise education too.  1000 new enterprise advisors are already working in schools in deprived areas. And a week ago experts from Britain and the US met in Boston to share experience on inspiring young people in schools about enterprise.

British universities, once slow to respond, are now fixed on working with businesses, expanding university spin offs, licensing technologies and teaching students about enterprise.  The spending round will offer more incentives for university and graduate enterprise.  We will encourage existing firms to use the entrepreneurial skills of Britain’s universities and colleges.  And this autumn we will launch a new National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship – which, working with the Kauffman foundation, will hold an international conference on how we can do more to put enterprise at the centre of the university curriculum.

All our proposals on enterprise for this year each add up to something bigger than their individual parts – initiatives that taken together can make a difference, and contribute to a change in culture and attitudes by valuing and celebrating the spirit of enterprise throughout Britain.

We know how much stronger our economy and our society will be if we see released all the dynamism, creativity and potential of all our people.  But too often, young people do not believe that enterprise is for them.

That is why this campaign and Enterprise Week are so important – inspiring young people to be enterprising, mobilising people to aim high and to achieve success, and giving those with ideas and ambition the confidence and know-how to start up their own businesses and make a success of their ideas.

So I urge you all to get involved and play your part in making Enterprise Week a success:

• setting up and taking part in enterprise events;
• telling the world about Enterprise Week – helping to get the enterprise message to young people where they spend their time – in  schools, universities, pubs and coffee shops, and online; and
• sharing your stories about how ideas can become successful businesses.

Because with business, government and the voluntary sector working together, I believe we can foster a British enterprise renaissance – and begin to tap the immense skill and entrepreneurial talent that exists in Britain to the benefit of the whole community.